[JDEV] Hope This Isn't Off Topic - Extending The Jabber Protocol/Messages

[David Griffiths]

Sorry if this is off topic (this is for Jabber-based development, so I don't
think it is), but it's development related.

I've written some software for the company I work for that is designed to
help translate data between files, databases, XML, and so on. Data is read
in from the source into a flexible data-store, and then witten back out.
Adapters do the translation from file/database/xml->flexible-data-store and
back again. I would like to write a Jabber adapter so that I can send data
across a network. Jabbers extensibility seems to offer lots of flexibility
(also looking at SOAP).

After setting up Jabber, testing access via Muse and JabberBeans, scanning
the Jabber Programmers Guide, and reading Programming Jabber, I am still at
a loss with regards to extending the protocol Jabber uses.

I've read that the "message" element may be able to have sub-elements (xml
tags) in it. That might be enough, but I'd rather have a bit more control
over the message.

I also vaguely remember something about creating a DTD for new messages.

Any help (or pointers to documentation/recommended reading) would be greatly
appreciated.

David